Egypt Convicts 3 Journalists; U.S. Is Critical

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An Egyptian court gave two Al Jazeera English journalists seven-year terms and a third a 10-year term after convicting them of conspiring to broadcast false reports of civil strife.Published OnJune 23, 2014CreditImage by Khaled Desouki/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images

CAIRO — Secretary of State John Kerry came to Egypt this weekend to renew its “important partnership” with Washington and to offer its new president, Abdel Fattah el-Sisi, assurance of the swift restoration of military aid.

Less than 24 hours after Mr. Kerry’s visit, a judge on Monday convicted three journalists from Al Jazeera’s English-language network of conspiring with the Muslim Brotherhood to broadcast false reports. The judge sentenced each one to at least seven years in prison — all without making public any evidence and without a word from Mr. Sisi.

The verdict has set off an international backlash against the Egyptian government’s crackdown on news media freedom and political dissent. But it has also put the White House in the awkward position of appearing to once again ally itself with an authoritarian leader just three years after President Obama backed the popular uprising against President Hosni Mubarak.

Mr. Kerry, on a visit to Baghdad on Monday, appeared stunned by the verdict and sentence, telling journalists that he had immediately called the Egyptian foreign minister to express “our serious displeasure.”

“Injustices like these simply cannot stand,” Mr. Kerry said, for Egypt to move forward, as Mr. Sisi and his aides “told me just yesterday that they aspire to see their country advance.” He called on the Egyptian government to “review all the political sentences and verdicts pronounced during the last few years and consider all available remedies, including pardons.”

The White House, in its own statement, said that the case “flouts the most basic standards of media freedom and represents a blow to democratic progress in Egypt” because it amounts to “the prosecution of journalists for reporting information that does not coincide with the government of Egypt’s narrative.” And the White House urged the Egyptian government to pardon the journalists or commute their sentences so that they “can be released immediately.”

The Egyptian government, however, stood by the verdict. “Due process was adhered to with all of the defendants,” the Ministry of Foreign Affairs said in a statement, emphasizing “the complete rejection of any foreign interference in the country’s internal affairs.”

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The fiancée of Mohamed Fahmy was comforted by a friend on Monday after guilty verdicts were announced in a Cairo courtroom.CreditAhmed Abd El Latif/El Shorouk Newspaper, via Associated Press

The case has attracted special attention because all three journalists had previously worked for established international news organizations. Mohamed Fahmy, a Canadian citizen of Egyptian descent, previously worked for CNN, The Los Angeles Times and The New York Times; Peter Greste, an Australian, previously worked for the BBC and had spent only a few days in Egypt at the time of his arrest; and Baher Mohamed, an Egyptian, previously worked for a Japanese news organization, The Asahi Shimbun.

All three have been in jail since their arrest in December after a raid on Al Jazeera’s makeshift studio in a Marriott Hotel, and they have been described in the state-run and pro-government Egyptian news media as “the Marriott cell.”

Rights advocates have described the charges as farcical. Although all three received sentences of seven years, Mr. Mohamed was given an additional three years for possession of a weapon: a single spent police bullet that he had recovered from a street protest as a souvenir.

Mr. Greste is not a Muslim, speaks no Arabic, and had spent only a few days in the Arab world before his arrest. Mr. Fahmy said in court that he was a “liberal” who drinks alcohol, and he personally participated in a march calling for the resignation of President Mohamed Morsi of the Muslim Brotherhood last June. In July, he marched in another demonstration to show support for the new military-backed government that has now sentenced him to seven years in prison.

When asked by the court to screen the allegedly false news reports obtained from the defendants’ laptops, prosecutors showed only unrelated images that included Mr. Greste’s family vacation, horses grazing in a pasture in Luxor, Egypt, and a news conference by the Kenyan police that Mr. Greste had covered.

They are accused of attempting to broadcast false reports of civil strife, but at the time of the arrests, street protests and civil strife were common enough in Egypt that such broadcasts would have been far easier to film than to fabricate.

Judge Mohammed Nagi Shehata, who led a panel of three and wore sunglasses throughout the trial, on Monday announced the verdict and sentences without explanation. He also sentenced a group of students tried along with the journalists to seven years in prison. They were apparently convicted of collaborating with the journalists to generate news reports of student protests against the takeover.

Inside the metal cage where defendants are held during Egyptian trials, the accused students immediately erupted into defiant songs and chants, proclaiming that their faith would overcome and denouncing the police as thugs. Mr. Greste looked down in dismay and ran his fingers through his hair. Mr. Fahmy angrily tried to quiet the students so that he could shout across the room to his mother, brother and fiancée, but his voice could not be heard. He clung to the bars as police officers pulled him away, dragging him back to his cell.

“There is no hope in the judicial system,” Mr. Fahmy’s mother, Waffa Basiouni, wailed tearfully. “They give him seven years with no evidence — if they had evidence, how many years would they give him?”

The defendants may appeal the verdict, but the process could take years.

Outside the courtroom, the Australian, British and Canadian ambassadors denounced the conviction as a blow to freedom of the press, and pledged diplomatic pressure to free the journalists.

“There is no incriminating evidence with regard to the charges and there were multiple procedural shortcomings,” David Drake, the Canadian ambassador, said. “Therefore, we do not understand this verdict.”

Britain and the Netherlands summoned Egypt’s ambassadors to protest the decision, and the secretary general of the United Nations condemned it as well.

The Committee to Protect Journalists numbers them among as many as 15 journalists now held in Egyptian prisons. All have been ensnared in a sweeping crackdown on both Islamist and non-Islamist opponents of the military ouster of Mr. Morsi of the Muslim Brotherhood last July 3. More than a thousand Islamist demonstrators were killed by security forces at street protests within a few weeks of the takeover, and at least 16,000 have been arrested.

In the state-run and pro-government news media, supporters of the military takeover have directed particular anger at Al Jazeera, which is owned by the government of Qatar. The network is the only major Arabic-language news outlet still available in Egypt that is sympathetic to the Muslim Brotherhood.

Three other journalists were convicted in absentia and sentenced to 10 years in prison. Among them are the British journalists Sue Turton and Dominic Kane and the Dutch journalist Rena Netjes.

After Mr. Sisi’s inauguration this month, there were hopes that he might pardon or release the imprisoned journalists. But there was no indication of either on Monday.

In his statement, Mr. Kerry condemned the “chilling, draconian sentences,” faulted the trial for lacking “many fundamental norms of due process” and called it “a deeply disturbing setback to Egypt’s transition.”

Dina El-Husseiny contributed reporting.

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